Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Following trends as a non make up artist - Adding colour to your eyes without looking crazy - perfect for festivals!

Last month I showed you how to follow the metallics trend without looking like C3PO from Star Wars. It's great fun trying to replicate looks from magazines but making them wearable can be tricky. There are ways of incorporating them into one's repertoire and today we're talking colour. I know, it can be scary bringing a strong colour onto one's visage and more specifically the eyes, but there are ways of working around it without looking like Bette Lynch circa 1983.

Ok, I love me some colour on my eyes but it's not always work friendly. But sure it's August and festivals are still in full swing and it's always nice to have an excuse to pile the colours on before we're in to muted shades and autumnal colours. We need to make the most of the last few days before the cold sets in!

You know I am in The Absolute Love with the Azure Blue eye pencil from YSL's summer collection. Love it. And every single time I wear it, I get lots of compliments. Can't say enough about this and if you haven't even gone to visit it in the shops, five Hail Marys and two Our Fathers.

There are lots of fantastically gorgeous liners out there at the moment and on a recent trip to Lush, I tested pretty much all of them on the back of my hand! The Emotional Brilliance line is chockerblocked full of pigmented lipsticks and liners in particular and for €17.95, they're hovering in the middle on the affordability scale. They've more muted shades for the scaredy cats among us and brighter ones for the brave ladies. Please go and visit the range and I dare you not to come out with a hand covered in swatches like mine! Just take a look at the matte turquoise one and the mermaid blue/green one... Simply beautiful!

A quick way to add some colour and intrigue to your peepers is with coloured mascara. I'm not talking crazy pale blue from the days of Dallas or ones that say they're coloured but don't show up with any colour at all at all. No, check out these stunners from Inglot and at €10 a pop, it'd be a sin not to try them.

If you think I'm crazy talking, then just check out this photo of Maria Menounos. This makes me want to try coloured mascaras and I'm pretty sure they'd make me look like her in all her eyebrowness perfection. Am in The Ultimate Love and may have talked myself into a trip to Inglot. Anyone coming avec moi?

Now, let's talk shadow. I'm a firm believer in investing in the neutral shades and those you wear every day. Any excuse, I know. But I think for trend based make up that you only wear a few times a year, it's better to save your spondoolies and the market is full of really bargaintastic colourdy products. Don't believe me? Then feast your neutrally shadowed eyes on these suckers.

I've shadows from Rimmel, NYC and MUA, not to mention my Sleek palettes which have the perfect balance of neutrals and mad shades. The Sleek palettes will set you back €9.99 from Cloud10Beauty or Beautyemporium and we're talking a couple of euro for Rimmel and NYC and just over a euro for MUA.

Now, this is as wild as I get when it comes to packing the colour on. One shade across the lid and I don't blend it too much at the edges. I kind of like it looking structured but I do think my eyes look funny without black liner and a good dollop of mascara with this much colour on. The shade I've used below is the cheapest of the bunch, from MUA and I applied it wet to get a nice even finish. If this is too scary for you, then do your neutral eye as usual and bring a shade like this under the lower lashes.

So talk to Joe, are you brave when it comes to applying colour to your eyes or do you play it safe?

I'm obsessed with colour! Anything a little different, I'd say I own every mac pigment under the sun ;) love it if it's bright, it sparkles, alllll of it! Also have loads of coloured mascara's - purple, pink, blue, green etc. I'm blessed in a way with long blonde lashes so it makes the coloured mascaras noticeable.